Land Rover admits that its internal predictions for the shape of the global SUV market in 2020 is only a best guess, but it does show the huge potential for the company. Land Rover estimates that the global SUV market will reach 22 million units by 2020. If so, this means that Land Rover could be a profitable premium-brand maker without selling regular road cars.

The chart above was flashed up by the company at the recent Range Rover presentation and shows where the biggest SUV markets are expected to lie.

In the super-luxury SUV segment — presumably with prices in six figures — the global market runs to just 116,000 units. One notch down, however, and there are 453,000 sales to fight for, making it fertile territory for the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.

According to Land Rover sources, the new aluminium production line at Solihull could produce 150,000 models per year at full stretch, which is the most profitable operating position. With the new Range Rover shifting just over 40,000 units and the Sport about 60,000, it leaves room for a range-topping aluminium Land Rover in a luxury leisure segment that should be able to steal 50,000 of the 682,000 available global sales.

Perhaps the biggest area where Land Rover can make headway is in the mid-market ‘leisure’ sector, where six million annual sales are up for grabs. As Land Rover’s future line-up shows, it needs to build a family of cars in the sector where the current Freelander and Discovery compete.

This, along with the desire for a city-sized Range Rover, means that Land Rover will probably need to develop its own scalable steel platform, which would probably come in two sizes, covering vehicles from 3.9m to 4.3m in length and those from 4.3m to 4.7m.

Although the new ‘leisure’ range would be partly built in the UK — suggesting that Halewood will need to expand significantly in a few years — the new Defender family will probably be built mostly in India, with European versions using a significant number of Indian-sourced sub-assemblies.

There’s no news on what will underpin the new Defender, but a modified version of the Discovery’s T5 platform, with a lighter structure and simplified suspension, looks most likely. With 10 million sales globally, there’s a huge incentive for Land Rover to fight its way back into the traditional SUV market that it partly invented.

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JLR is very very strong in upmarket/luxury SUVs. The business is very profitable and they have a very strong brand. The issue is the strategy is one dimensional, Say if the luxury SUV market takes a hit, its unlikely, but if this happens JLR have put all their cards in one hat.

They need a high volume, value for money, utilitarian ine up. Something that will generate volumes from developing markets but also have consistent demand in the more matured ones.

Making the next generation on a revamped and lighter T5 platform in India is a great recipe. But the models must be cost competitive rather than pushing them upmarket with pimped up versions.

Also these cars must be rugged and reliable from day one. When competing against the hiluxes and navaras of the world the last thing one wants to be is unreliable.

Also these cars must be rugged and reliable from day one. When competing against the hiluxes and navaras of the world the last thing one wants to be is unreliable.

You cite the Navara as reliable; it's notorious for the Grenade engine in it. There's been a run of duff diesel engines that have come out of Nissan since the late 90's; the ZD30 (3.0 Diesel) and the YD25 (2.5 Diesel) both have major problems that will write the engine off. Just look on ebay for a Navara and you'll find a fair chunk with the engine in pieces in the tub!

Land Rover have few comeptitors for the Defender here in the UK, but as I've said before in Australia and Africa their problem is the 70 series Land Cruiser range. It's got a big lazy diesel (now a 4.5 V8 diesel with a sinlge turbo, as opposed to the twin turbo that is used in the 200 series Land Cruiser (Amazon in the UK)) and available in 3 configurations:

Troop Carrier with 2/3/5/9/11 seats

Double cab with 5 seats

Single cab with 2 or 3 seats.

Both the Double and the Single cab are available as chassis cabs without a back as the norm in Aus is to get your own tray back made, or you can get an alloy one from Toyota.

Tech wise? They have live axles, coil springs (that were a recent upgrade; they still ran on leaf springs up until about 2000!), some have central locking, but WYSIWYG with them. Everything bolts on and off of them, parts are available everywhere and they never need them any way! They do have selectable 4wd, as opposed to the constant 4wd that a LR Defender has (in that respect they're closer to a Series III) which makes them a bit more economical; in fact a common modification on the 80 and 100 series is to convert the front end to freewheeling hubs so that they aren't in 4wd all the time.

I think that LR need to do the following to the Defender range to make it successful:

Kepp live axles; IFS is too much of a compromise, and drives the cost up and makes the drivetrain weaker through the use of CV joints in 4 locations

A large size diesel; a minimum of 3.5 litres for the Australian, Africa and American markets, and one that is happy running on poorer quality diesel. A lot of big agricultural properties in Australia run their own fuel stores so the diesel can be a bit bitty due to the corrosion in the bowser. They need a large diesel to compete in those markets as the norm is so much larger than in the UK; remember the American's run 6.0 - 7.5 litre diesels in their full size pickups. The VW Amarok has shown that small diesels don't go down well in the Australian market.

Decent MGVW; Australia often modify their utes to run up to 4500kg, as that's the most you can drive on a car licence. If you've only got a 3500kg max, with a 1000kg payload from stock and are setting up for long distance work with a couple of long range fuel tanks (2x 100 litre fuel tanks isn't unusual, a 70 series Troopy comes with 140 and 90 litre as an option), a 2nd spare at another 30kg or so, and 75litres of water (that's 2 people for a couple of days) then you've not much payload left...

For the UK market keep the 90 size as a pick up, as well as the 110 HiCap and Double cabs. The Station Wagons are worth keeping as well, as long as they can work out how to keep it the 110 a 9 seater. The Hard Tops again are a popular option, so they're worth keeping. 2.5 litre diesel, and possibly a high efficiency petrol as the tech improves.

Diff Locks: The Mitusbishi L200 and Toyota Hi Luxes have both had rear diff locks as standard on the UK market on their Warrior and SR5 spec models for a number of years; it's just better for driving off road. Also the Merc G and Toyota Land Cruiser both run 3 diff locks as normal in the UK market.

Swap the wheels to the same PCD as the Japanese trucks use (5 or 6 studs, but make it the same as the Jap stuff) as that'll increase the availability of spares in Africa, Asia and Australia.

Increase the body width so that 3 abreast is comfortable; the ability to run 3 up in the front is useful but the space in a Defender is a bit tight (but the Land Cruiser isn't much better if you're not good friends with the middle person!!!)

Keep it with the towing limit of 3500kg; this is where some of the other vehicles loose out when towing a livestock trailer of sheep etc, or a horse box with 2 big horses in it.

Think that they're all simple suggestions, the bigger one is to convince the world that they are now relaible, as the damage was done in the 1970's with the various engines and drivetrain components of that era failing.

I'm not going to profess I know much about the SUV market, let alone what it is going to be doing in eight years time but it strikes me that they seem to be underestimating the pick up market.

All I have to do is look at the car park at work at any point during the day to see the amount of tradesmen / companies that run 4x4 style pick ups. Surely a well targeted product would be a money spinner for them, not only in the UK but also the developing markets. If they got the basics right and put it on a scaleable chassis, the lucrative US market could also be tapped in to as well.

The current plans for a new Defender pick up just don't seem to hit the mark (well from what I have seen of it) and they seems to be missing a big opportunity.

On another note, I have heard recently from a person inside JLR that the management are considering killing off the Land Rover name in favour of the Range Rover name and predominantly moving all of their products out of the "commercial" sector. Certainly reports on here contradict that but his reasoning was sound - Range Rover products make money, Land Rover products don't and probably won't. How true and accurate this information is, is anyones guess?

I don't think so. My well-placed JLR insider tells me that the return of the Rover brand on the new small saloon is very likely, pitching it as a lower premium product and refraining from taking Jaguar further downmarket. I therefore do not see that JLR would take the opposite tack with LR/RR.